


My Country Tis of Thee

by Book_of_Kells



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Addiction, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fígrid February, Military Backstory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:44:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6076362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Book_of_Kells/pseuds/Book_of_Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only the dead have seen the end of War.</p><p>~ Plato ~</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Country Tis of Thee

**Author's Note:**

> I own none of this.. I just like playing with the characters..

 

 

 

Michael was laughing at some joke.

He was affable, smiling wide to show her the crooked teeth that he was going to get fixed when his tour ended. Propping his arm on the door as he drove the transport truck, he smacked his bubblegum in a loud pop since he couldn’t stand the taste of dip. The guys in the convoy always gave him hell because he refused to put something in his mouth that would rot his crooked teeth and destroy his gums. Sugar free gum might but it would take longer, Mike always argued.

The day was overcast with weak sunlight peering thought the bruised sky. Rain here was a cloud burst worse than any hurricane she had endured in the states. The roar of the engine bounced from the sandstone walls in the alley as they drove past. The comms started going crazy about an IED attack two streets over when the front of their truck exploded. The M4 propped on the door slid from her grasp to fall to the street below as she was thrown against the metal.

Her helmet rattled its contents like a martini shaker full of vodka and vermouth, taking the worse of the impact to her head. Her shoulder crumpled before the side wall of the vehicle did, snapping the bone in an audible break. The left side of her body felt strangely dead and yet burning with pain like a fire that rippling behind a screen. Charcoal smoke filled the cab of the truck, cutting off her breath and obscuring her vision. She couldn’t see, hardly breathe and her body refused to obey the simplest commands.

“Sigrid! Sigrid!”

It must have been an IED in the road, or an RPG? Fighting against the stranglehold of fear and shock, she tried to scream but her body was still immobile. The smoke scraped her throat raw as she gasped harder to pull the life giving air to her deprived lungs. She waved her arms desperately, to grab something, _anything_. The charred bloody sleeve of her left arm came into view, making her cringe at the sight and the pain that doubled up her arms. Seeing the destruction of her body awoke the nerves to the agony of the explosion. There was no escape, her body wracked with pain flailed in the burning truck. Oh god, she thought at last, _Mike_ !

“ _SIGRID_!”

The scream was halfway out of her mouth when she opened her eyes. The rest of the trapped oxygen in her body pushed out a crying moan of despair. She wasn’t in Iraq, she was home in her childhood bed. The darkness of the room was grayer than black with the LED nightlights in every lower socket, giving off little echoes of light for her to see. Bard let her go to sit back on the edge of her full bed, his sleep pants and t-shirt twisting about his lean body.

A horrible nightmare but not quite so bad as the haggard look on her father’s face. He had long day on the lake yesterday, and another long one starting at daybreak. He was trying, Bard was trying so very hard. It was all he could do to keep himself afloat on the best of days but also keep his daughter from drowning in her memories.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she sat upright in the bed. “I’m sorry. Really..Da..I”

“It’s fine, Sigrid love.” He reached out to brush the hair from her face but she shied away. Sigrid wasn’t capable of touching just yet, not while the smell of death and burning flesh was still in her nose. “I know you hate taking the Lunestra but …”

“I took it last night, Da.” The dreams came anyway, no matter the medication in her bloodstream. The Ambien had made them worse.

She got out of bed and picked up the phone at the nightstand. 3 am, she had been asleep for 4 hours and little more. “Go get some sleep, Da. I’ll be at the end of the hall so I won’t disturb you.”

“You need sleep too, darling.” His voice followed her but Sigrid didn’t stop, heading to the hall with her father’s words and emotions hanging thick in the air.

The hall was a squared tube of carpet and beige walls that lacked any other ornamentation. The pictures of her family had long since been removed by a kindly relative when it was obvious they did more harm than good. The happy faces in the frames could have belonged to some other family for they bore no resemblance to the broken people of the O’Girion household. Sigrid could see the faint outlines of where they had been as she walked by, pale squares in the darker taupe. Once they had been a family, now they were ghosts captured in a haunted house.

The sewing room at the end had been her mother’s, a beautiful woman who plied a needle like Jimi Hendrix handled a guitar.. or so her father said when he told the story. Switching on the light, the young girl took in the metal shelves of fabric that was a space eater to the two sewing machines at the far wall then to the wood frame in the center of the room. Her mother had taught Sigrid how to sew and quilt, patiently bending over the large frame that her parents gave her as a wedding present. She made all of their clothes as children, staying up after they went to bed to finish. It had been a wonderful childhood, at least, it seemed that way until the car accident had taken her mother and youngest sister, Tilda. Now, the large frame was Sigrid’s solitude, a place where the battle dreams didn’t zero in on her position.

Unwinding her ear buds, she pulled up a playlist titled ‘tranquility’. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata teased her ears slowly as she breathed deeply. Taking the chair before the frame, Sigrid picked up her needle and started to sew the pattern to the layers. It was therapeutic for her, a repetitious action that didn’t require her to look to closely at her mangled left arm covered by a long sleeve. Three surgeries, skin graphs along with a thousand hours of PT but it worked. She had been lucky. Mike never survived the attack.

It helped, the music, it pushed her from her body and let her fingers soar over the material. There were so many things that were wrong in her life, this grounded her faster than the legal drugs she took. Plying the needle in and out, Sigrid stopped herself from joining a pity party. Lots of kids sign up with the military when they graduate, her dad was Navy man for christ sakes. After 9/11, tons of people had: kids, grownups, reservists going back in. It was a war, not a camping trip. Bad shit happens in war and unfortunately, it happened to her. Losing her mother and sister, then watching her brother kill himself slowly with meth hadn’t been bad enough, Sigrid had thought hiding from her home life in a battlefield was a better choice.

A knock at the door pulled her from her mindlessness, snapping her attention behind her. Yanking out the buds, Sigrid cursed not for the first time that she needed to turn the frame so she could see the door and not be so startled. Bard stood there, dressed with wet hair indicating he had a shower. Snatching up her phone to pause the song that was now Pachelbel’s canon, she was shocked to see three and half hours had flown by her with no notice. Her back had a cramp and when she stretched out her arms, the loud pop at her elbows released the stiff sensation.

“Breakfast.” He told her quietly, leaving the door open as he walked away.

Part of their deal was she had to come downstairs to eat. Sigrid had tried to hole up in her room when the VA hospital in Rivendell had released her, only coming out from the covers to relieve herself and hoard food into her tent city. Bathing had been optional, it required her to look at the scars that littered the left side of her body. Getting up from the chair, Sigrid followed at a sedate pace, twisting her hips to work out the stiffness.

She walked through the living room whose furniture was dated BTA, Before The Accident that took her mom and sister. A sagging sectional that was once navy, now was closer to black. She tried to use some of her discharge money to buy a new couch or at least a new TV but two weeks after coming home she figured out why Bard had nothing new. Bain used the house as a savings and loan; he saved time by stealing anything of value then loaning it out for drugs. Sigrid had yet to catch the little fucker.

Six orange soldiers awaited her on the northwest side of her plain blue plate. Their white covers were tight and perfect, policing the little pills within. The names sounded off in bold type, their etymology as opaque as the results. Drugs to help her manage the day, drugs to stop the tight wound feeling in her gut and of course, drugs to pause the endless loop of the horror movie that was her last week in Bagdad. She hated the pills, hated the sinking feeling of delayed response that they gave her. Sigrid was living her life, but she didn’t feel any of it.

Bard flopped a ham and cheese omelet on her plate with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. That space was already rented to the worry and concern for his eldest child. Tugging down the left sleeve, Sigrid dug in so that he would take a seat and enjoy his toast and jam. They didn’t have money for bagels, so they pretended with the toast.

“I have something I want you to read.” Her Da started, handing her folded sheet of paper that he had innocuously placed to one side.

Taking the sheet, Sigrid cursed herself again for slipping. She normally saw this stuff coming, the hints of interaction with the outside world. There would be new pamphlets with the mail or left on a counter. College, online or not. Book clubs, even a sewing bee at the community center. Sigrid curled a lip at that memory, a bunch of old women who had tried and failed to stop staring at her hand when she went that one time. Yes, she wanted to scream at them, yes, I am a woman who got hurt just like the boys!

Opening the paper, she stared at the picture of a stain glass window with the words St. Beorn’s support group at the bottom with a list of the days and times. Unable to process it, Sigrid looked to Bard across from her at his sheepish expression. The temples were a little greyer today and he needed a haircut. His smart light blue polo shirt with the emblem of Long Lake Charters was pressed almost to the point of being starched. If she looked under the table, no doubt his khaki shorts would look the same.

“What’s this?” She asked a little rougher than she intended and the shaking of the paper didn’t help.

Bard took a deep pull of his coffee. “You don’t drive, baby. Or I should say, you won’t drive.” He took a breath to look at his plate to escape her searching eyes. “You need to talk to someone about what happened and the closest VA hospital is in Rivendell and that’s a three hour drive. I thought that if you found someplace local….”

Sigrid gritted her teeth as she balled up the paper. “You know why I don’t drive! You know I can barely stand a car! And as for remembering… or even talking about it? That’s why take this shit!” She reached down and grabbed two of the bottles, staking their contents at her father like a maraca. “I don’t want to remember! All I want..” The words were cut off in a sob, a dry heave of pain as the anxiety plunged her thoughts into chaos.

“I know, baby.” Bard stayed in his seat, letting her fight though it until she gave up and popped a Xanax to suffocate the screams in her head. It was another part of their deal. “But the pills are a blanket, covering the problem. You have always been a fighter, don’t stop fighting now.”

She wanted too, she wanted to get out of the house but the world didn’t see her the same. Hell, she didn’t see herself the same. Yes, it was a hardship being so far from the Vetern’s Association, Bard never complained about it. He loved his job on the water, just hated his supervisor Alfrid the snake. Looking at him now, his life had aged him and was slowly breaking him down. Bard was a good man, he hadn’t deserved to lose his family like this.

“Please? Will you give it a try?”

Guilt was her motivator, guilt at what she put him through on a daily basis. He worked hard and her disability paid for a good share of the bills. But that wasn’t going to last forever, she knew that she would need to learn how to be a person, a civilian again. That was something the Army hadn’t told her, there was no rules in the handbook for living in the real world with real injuries.

“Ok, Da.” She spoke quietly as the depressant calmed her down to an almost childlike degree.

“There’s colcannon in the fridge from last night. I have to go, I have an early fishing charter this morning.” Bard said as he finished his coffee and omelet.

She heard him get up, felt the pressure of a kiss on her head and a squeeze of her shoulder, the bad one. Then he was gone. Sigrid couldn’t say how long she sat there, staring at the plate of food. Her thoughts were like disconnected rail cars and she didn’t understand where one coupled to another. Later, when the meds wore off, she found herself laying in the bathtub spooning her Remington 700 semi-automatic that she usually kept in the sewing room. Sitting up, Sigrid could only say it was an improvement that it wasn’t a ranger grave in the front yard again.

************

She stood outside the church on the corner of Drake and Mountain as the sun set on the steeple. A simple rectory, Catholic if she remembered. Sigrid gripped at her sleeve in a self-conscious manner. It was her tell, as Mike would call it, a sign of her checking and rechecking herself. Her jeans were fine and so was the pullover. There were no scars on her face and just a few small dots at her chin makeup covered if she bothered, nothing that warranted plastic surgery in her opinion. The blast had been centered low on the driver’s side, not hers. It was the only reason she lived. Locking up her bike, Sigrid took a deep breath then a first step.

Her shoes made the rubber grip noise on the concrete as she mounted the steps to the side door. The pamphlet said anyone was welcome and to stay as long as they liked. There was no harm in giving it a shot, she reasoned. Her Da might let go of some of his stress. She knew that he heard from Bain sometimes, mostly to ask for money or cry about something. Bard was more tense those days and if he didn’t loose up, he was heading for a stroke.

The entryway was Spartan, a table with packaged cookies arranged on a plate. Two bundt cakes sat on each side, one very brown but heavily dusted with powdered sugar. Someone was trying to hide the burnt favor under a thick coating of sweet. The standard percolators bubbled along, relics from the time warped 70’s. It made her wonder if the coffee was just as ancient.

“Hello? May I help you, dear?”

Sigrid turned sharply at the voice to see a tall man in a cassock of a bishop. His robes were black as one could expect with the fuchsia piping at the edges but the shaggy beard and long gray ponytail was a surprise. His eyes were kind but intent as if he were making rapid judgements based on her appearance. Normally, that first impression BS unnerved her but Sigrid could let it slide because he was a priest. The church wasn’t the best part of town and the ‘love thy neighbor’ rule of the good book could get someone hurt really bad. Sigrid found she like the idea of ‘do unto others before they can do unto you’ a lot better but it wasn’t exactly preached on Sunday.

“I’m Sigrid O’Girion. My .. da-father..gave me a pamphlet …about your group.” She was having difficulty say it out loud, the fact that she wasn’t here by choice. Her confidence was on the downhill and she wasn’t sure she could say much more.

The priest smiled, not the simpering sugar of sympathy but a genuine grin that lit up his face. He was probably in his 60’s, a lifer to have made it to bishop with some connections to speed things up. The tension in his form evaporated, pushing back his shoulders. It was an odd reaction, making her relax along with him.

“I am Bishop Gandalf Grau. You are most welcome, my dear, to St. Beorn’s support group. We are just getting started, so if you would like to come and meet the others?” He took a step to one side so that she could see the lighted doorway at the end. He must have seen her nervousness for he continued. “I don’t think the unknown scares you, so this first night won’t be the hard part. The most difficult will be coming back for the second night because you will have an idea.”

He was right, of course, but she was nonetheless surprised that he was so astute. Most people unless they knew her before, didn’t have the same opinion at first glance. Bishop Grau smiled as he could see her taking a step back but not a full step, she wasn’t going to retreat.

“How do you know?”

“I am guessing military? Just now, your bearing straightened and you clasped your hands behind your back in an at ease position while you are anything but comfortable with my staring.” The bishop looked to her head then down to her chin. “You have natural blond hair with no real help and no roots showing, chin length regulation. No makeup, so that means you aren’t fighting insecurity more so than you want to blend in rather than stand out. Your eyes are a little bloodshot but not dilated, leaving me to think you aren’t sleeping. The rings under your eyes say that too.” He kept going, looking down her body in a clinical manner that made her fight the impulse to recoil under his gaze. “Your pullover is name brand but not new. These are your clothes not something that you were lent or bought at goodwill yesterday. Favorite clothes, something known because you are already anxious and known things help you.”

“You’re good.” Sigrid told him, by rights he should be if he was working with troubled people. “How do you know I’m not an addict or a sex fiend?”

He smiled at her. “Your teeth are in good shape, not sparking white like they’re brand new. You're muscular and fit. You are not digging into your arms or upper thighs or rubbing your nose, so no cocaine, heroin. I am not sure of the signs yet for meth. If you were an addict, I would think your demeanor would be different. More shifty, less aggressive, you haven’t had a problem looking me in the face. It was narrowed down to compulsives, or PTSD. You have been at an angle to the door but watching the window to your left which denotes training. Threats are still an active part of your thinking, so PTSD.”

“Oh.”

There was nothing else to say but ‘oh’. He had nailed it and her so completely within just a few minutes. He gestured again and she walked beside him to the door. Bishop Grau didn’t outwalk her, it wasn’t a race. He was quiet support, letting her find herself. Sigrid had no real feeling for religion, no interest in the iconography on the walls. The ratio of unanswered prayers to flags handed to loved ones had crushed her beliefs during her first tour. There just wasn’t room in her life for something that wasn’t of any real use.

The bishop led her inside to a room about twenty by thirty. Cheap wood paneling boxed them into the window bank that revealed a starry sky. There were about twenty five metal folding chairs in a circle, evenly spaced to allow movement. They weren’t bunched in, crowded, and by the looks of the people already there, some of the chairs would stay empty.

“Everyone,” Father Grau spoke to get everyone’s attention. “This is Sigrid. She will be joining us tonight. Let’s everyone take our seats and get started.”

There was a shuffle and honking as chairs scuffed the floor. Across from her was a little guy, a few inches shorter than her five eight frame. Mousy brown hair and a thin beard, he had large owlish brown eyes. Sigrid might have wanted to sink into the walls and watch but this guy could. There was literally nothing that made him stand out in any way. Brown hair, eyes and pasty skin against a white shirt that was scarily white and non descript Khakis, he was the very idea of bland.

An older man touched the bland kid’s shoulder, older and close to say fifty. There was some relation there, common features like the same shape of the eyes and twist of full lips. Sigrid guess him to be the father due to the age difference and the close contact of the two.

“Dain? Why don’t you start tonight?” Father Gandalf took a chair to one side, pulling out a pad.

“Hi, my name is Dain.” A medium height male stood a few chairs down.

“Hi, Dain.” The rest chorused.

He was about the same height as the kid she had noticed but with a fire red beard. Potbellied in a ill fitting suit, Sigrid could see that the buttons strained the fabric of his shirt. His suit coat wouldn’t close at all, framing his gut like a bloated picture.

He turned to make eye contact with Sigrid as the new arrival. She wasn’t sure he didn’t wink at her. “I’m a compulsive gambler. Used to be the Indian casinos, went to Atlantic City a few times until I lost my house.” Sigrid wasn’t sure what to say as the history started to roll from the man like a slot machine. “Wife left me, took my kid. I run a used car lot on the edge of town. Dain’s Lucky Autos. So if you need a good used vehicle. …”

He started to reach into a pocket for what she presumed was a business card and advance on her position. Startled, she backed up in the chair but braced her feet so she could get up in a hurry. “I don’t drive.”

“Dain.” Father Gandalf said quickly, watching Sigrid to make sure she was ok. “We have discussed selling during the meetings. This is Sigrid’s first night, we want her to feel welcome, not harassed.”

Dain’s lips pouted a little at being denied but he sat down in his chair. The little white card went back into his pocket but she was sure it would be pushed on her again before she left. “Oh..yeah. right. Anyway, no gambling. Haven’t in 6 months.”

There was a round of polite clapping from the others as Dain sat back down, a lukewarm reception to his effort. Sigrid joined in but was sure how long she should. She didn’t know him, didn’t know if he was 6 months out of gambling or not. He could be lying for all she knew and going online now. She realized that she still had her gloves on but decided to keep them that way. Looking to Father Gandalf, he gave her an encouraging smile.

Next up was a rather rotund male about her height with extreme amounts of kinky ginger hair. Sigrid wanted to look close without staring but it seemed like he had dreadlocks at the corner of his chins. It was noteworthy to say that he might have possessed a pleasant smile but it was lost in the long swaths of his moustache. She could imagine him having to comb food out of that twisted mass and the thought made her cringe.

“Howdy all.” He put his hands across his large belly with a smile. The words puffed the hair up like a floor vent out hanging drapes. “My name is Bombur and I am a compulsive eater.”

Some of the group smiled back and the “Hi Bombur” was a bit more lively. It was obvious now that Dain wasn’t a favorite to the group. Bombur was more affable than Dain had been, though less well dressed. A black tracksuit stretched his frame, the dark color not as slenderizing as it should have been. The big man sung back and forth on his heels, making his knees pop at the motion.

“Its difficult to be a food addict, but I am getting better. There haven’t been any binges in three weeks. No blackout eating.” One or two including a very well dressed woman clapped for him at that moment, earning a scowl from Dain at her right. No one had clapped for his progress. “Oh! I forgot ! My friend, Bilbo, is here with me tonight for support.” A short man who sat in the back next the kid’s father waved at hand to the group. He had the apple cheeks of the most innocuous burglar.

Father Gandalf cleared his throat as he looked at the small man in a yellow waste coat and brown jacket. “Bilbo, I am glad to see you and appreciate your support of your friend here. Though, you might want to consider joining the group for your own eating habits.”

The man stood up to be better seen. “Most glad to hear you say that. But I am not ready to get better, thank you. I like my second breakfasts and elevensies just where they are.”

The bishop chuckled then let go of his humor. “We will talk again, Bilbo. But congratulations, Bombur. Food is the hardest thing to be addicted too because we need it to live. It isn’t like drugs that you a defined choice in whether or not to take. Moderation is harder for that reason. Family reunions, parties, and even home life.”

“I used to make cookies with my kids, a couple dozen at a time. Then sneak downstairs after and eat them all.” Shame filed up the big man’s face, shame for what he couldn’t control. Sigrid felt her heart go out to him for that reason.

Father Gandalf nodded to a flamboyantly dressed woman in green. She looked around the room in a slow perusal that reminded Sigrid of a hunter looking for a target. It was calculating, thinking in a way that didn’t feel sexual, there wasn’t any flirty vibe going on there.

She stood up, shaking out her skirt. “Hi everyone! My name is Legolas and I am an addict.”

The long white blond hair fell down her shoulders in waves that looked surreal. Sigrid would have thought it a wig and it still could be. If it was, it was very high end. The dress set off her pretty eyes, making them sparkle and at the same time hide her less than abundant bosom. Long muscular legs in high heels completed the look. She looked like a politician’s wife or someone moneyed.

“Hi, Legolas.”

“I’ve been two months without using and I feel just great!” The gushing was annoying to Sigrid who was really envious of the hair. But the very long fingers and abnormally large feet made her think that there was more to Legolas than what was readily available.

“Bullshit!” A voice echoed in the room. Sigrid whipped to the doorway to see a blond guy in a cop’s uniform standing at the door.

“Fili, you have to wait your turn like everyone else.” Father Gandalf cautioned from his chair. “There are no guns in the House of the Lord, you know this.”

“Father, I’m sorry I’m late, got backed up at work.” The blond guy walked in, his boots snapping the floor. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Tauriel is missing half her Vicodin prescription!”

The cop stalked with leonine grace, filling out his uniform. It was poetry in motion, lean compact action that struck her like a fist in the lady parts. The shiny pleather of his duty belt reflected the overhead lighting, almost making her miss his standard Glock 22 with the extended backstrap. There were four magazines on his belt, two bracketing each side of his front buckle. She had to respect his attention to safety but was all that ammo necessary?

“Well, if Tauriel would get off your brother’s cock for a while, she would quit losing brain cells and remember how to count.” The long legged blond harped as she took a seat in her chair with a thunk. Legolas folded her arms over her absent chest in a clear defensive mode.

“I’m not here to talk about my brother, stick to the subject. You’re popping pills again.” The cop, Fili, stood just outside the ring of chairs, pacing back and forth.

“No, you’re late because you were probably killing another innocent person!” The high shriek of the blond made Sigrid gasp, it was like bell toll of the Muezzin’s call to prayer.

“Enough !” Bishop Gandalf said as he rose from his chair. His voice took a deeper cadence as if he was pulling it from his shoes. “We will take a short recess for this situation to get resolved. Fili, please secure your weapon in your vehicle.”

The shock of the Bishop’s presence in the circle pulled her back from the spiral of flashbacks that had started. It was enough to allow her to catch her breath and get out of the chair. The others had already filed out to the corridor with the Lion leading the charge, making her wonder how long she sat there in a daze. Piteous whines followed her out the door of “I twisted my ankle and it hurt” “Tauriel wasn’t using them!” “It was just a few..”

Mascara would be running after that the snot fest was over, making high and glamorous go looking for the restroom. Sigrid changed course for some outside air, she didn’t have the patience for female waterworks at the moment. It was the first time the cycle had been stopped before the steamroller of hurt and pain mowed her down. The adrenaline was still there, but the fight or flight feel was controllable. She was still in mental analysis when she shoved open the outside door into the returning policeman.

“Offpt!” The grunt was comical, making Sigrid feel badly for the grin that spread across her lips.

“I’m sorry!” She started but the blond backed up a few steps with his arm wrapped around his middle from contact. “I..yeah..sorry.”

“Entirely me! My thoughts were somewhere bad, and I wasn’t paying attention.”

He was handsome at close range, his beard trimmed neat to the cheek. Most departments had rules about facial hair but northern states like theirs were more lax due to the cold. In the spotlight, she could see he was as compact as she thought he was. He wasn’t over muscled, but fit like a runner or swimmer would be. He had some definition in the shoulders where the material was tight, just the right amount.

Realizing she was staring smacked her with a new line of embarrassment. Sigrid bowed her head a little before moving to one side to get out of his way. But he didn’t leave, just stood staring at her in the same manner she had been admiring him. It _was_ admiring too because there was a soft smile at his lips as he looked her over with molasses slow intent. His gaze made her feel both hot and cold all at once.

“You’re new.” He blurted, staring at her gloved hands. Flinching at his mistake, his attention swung to her face again. “Uh..I mean.. Shit.. I’m usually better than.. “

“Better than what?” Sigrid asked, staring into the clearest blue eyes she had ever seen outside of a canine.

The urge to hide her arms overwhelmed her but like the bishop, this cop would have seen that one of her wrists was thinner than the other. Putting her hands behind her back wouldn’t change the scarred flesh they concealed. It made her ashamed for the first time that she wasn’t as pretty as the pill head inside, trying to justify why she stole. And that didn’t work for her no matter how tooth achingly good looking he was. This was one of the days that reaffirmed her opinion that life sucked King Kong’ dick.

“uh.. Better at talking to people..pretty women.. Legolas and her shit..just put me in a different place. I’m sorry..” He rubbed the back of his neck with a hand before extending it to her. “Fili.”

Wait..Did he just call her pretty? “Sigrid.”

He held out his hand in greeting. It was broad with bumpy knuckles and wisps of light colored hair along the back. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing, didn’t know that she hating people touching her now. Why humanity needs skin to skin contact, she would never know but for once, Sigrid decided to give it a try. Taking off her right glove, she clasped his slightly warmer hand despite the chill that had descended upon their town now that dusk had fallen. The fingers grasped her hand but they weren’t a cage to hold her, only seeking to know the terrain. There wasn’t the grinding pressure on her bones of an ego driven idiot who exploited the uniform for a macho trip. The warm feeling spread up her forearm to her elbow and kept going, making her see him as a person rather than a threat.

“I’ve got to go back inside .. deal with Legolas.. apologize for calling her out.” He didn’t let go, staring at her again with the same transfixed expression as before. “Would you like to go for coffee after? ..I realize that its abrupt..but..”

“There’s coffee inside.” It was all she could think to say, a doofus response to the unknown. Immediately, she tried to think of an escape but that would mean letting go of him and she didn’t want to do that _just_ yet.

“Different coffee.” He smiled and she melted.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> About a year ago, I remember watching a bootleg copy of American Sniper and thinking.. WoW wouldn’t that be a great figrid story? When of course Mont Girl wrote a fantastic piece ‘Oh my love don’t fade away’ and I forgot all about my story plot. Lol. This piece isn’t agenda driven, I have the highest respect for those who serve and those that choose to protect us daily as police. Addiction is part of this story but also PTSD both of which are painful to deal with. My thoughts go out to everyone who wakes up and struggles with the decision to be sober.  
> I am thinking about a second chapter for this but not sure.


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